A dinner party reunion of estranged friends sets the stage for director Karyn Kusama's unnerving and twisted micro-horror The Invitation. The film's marketing has wisely eschewed going much further than that vague synopsis, for this one is most rewarding when experienced fresh. But don't just expect surprises with what unfolds, but from what's underneath the plentiful chills.
Shot almost entirely within one swanky Los Angeles home, the modest production is deceptive for how easily it gets under your skin and rattles. Its slim budget is hidden by a glossy presentation and a production design that finds the right alchemy of alluring and demonic (paging Daniel Walber!). Kusama treats this house as she does the many characters, all hidden corners of darkness packaged within a polished facade. If you watch The Invitation on VOD, prepare to have home jealousy, for this is pure house porn. And you'll definitely want a glass of wine.
The ensemble is appealing with their flexible chemistry, each member giving the chance to pop without falling into stereotype. Yes, there is the free spirit girl, the gays, the spunky Asian, the naif, but they all bounce off of one another with authentic interaction so that the cliche isn't the default. Tammy Blanchard is the standout, giving fascinating physicality to her character's delusions - her white dress subtly shifting from goddess armor to ghostly shrowd as she implodes over the course of the evening. The recognizable faces include Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus), Emayatzy Corinealdi (Middle of Nowhere), and John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac - can you ever trust him on screen?).
The film is constructed with a relentless build of paranoia. The threat of something sinister is always humming beneath the alternating niceties and tensions shared between these characters' fractured attempts at reconnection. The shared social awkwardness only heightens the conflicting audience notions that either something is indeed amiss or that maybe the menace is all imagined, making for a disorientingly spooky vibe. Kusama and her standby editor Plummy Tucker craft the film to be somewhat languid in a way that lets the malevolent tone take deep root thanks to its deliberate, impenetrable force. These scares are heady, but damn effective.
Where a standard slasher would have you screaming at the victims on the screen to not run upstairs or not investigate a strange noise, The Invitation frustrates for how its seemingly rational characters stay put. Plausibility is strained to its bare fibers and character rationalizations fall flat in the weakest moments of an otherwise witty and sturdy screenplay. Seriously, no fancy wine in the world would keep you there. It's best to just go with the flow with this one so it can work its spell.
Like the recent indie success of It Follows and The Witch, The Invitation has more on its mind that providing sturdy chills to its audience. Its ambitions may be even more modest than its recent micro peers (and The Invitation is the teensiest of them all), but it is equally as psychologically intriguing. The film is as much about the power of depression to inform our self-awareness and the struggle to maintain the group status quo in the face of trauma as it is about any of the evil forces that eventually reveal themselves. Saying more than that would simply spoil the fun.
But it's not all psychosis and suggestion - that slow build can only take so much until the film's tension becomes like a bursting balloon. The fallout is swift and thrilling without compromising any of the established character dynamics that made the first two acts so compelling. If the film's ultimate payoff isn't particularly inventive or unique, it makes up for it with its steadfast confidence and a gasp-inducing final moment. With such control over the genre elements and attention to character detail, audiences would be lucky to have Karyn Kusama directing the likes of larger scale psychological thrillers like Gone Girl or anything else she can make stand out like this tiny doozy.
Grade: B
The Invitation is now playing in select theatres and is available on VOD.